Oracle Blog

Thursday Dec 20, 2007

Disclaimer: I'm writing while listening to Yngwie Malmsteen'sConcerto for Guitar and Orchestra in E Minor, which is the perfect complement to my
Godsmack t-shirt and fuzzy duck slippers.

Context: While standing around with other middle school parents a few weeks ago, one (who happens
to be a music teacher) posed a question to use that she had asked her class earlier in the week.

Question: What music of today will still be listened to in 300 years? Good question, because
there aren't many others that let you put Beethoven, Jimi Hendrix and Charlie Parker
in the same answer. Her class was quick to suggest various popular artists, only to have other
students point out that last year's chart leaders were already forgotten. My related thought was that
in 300 years, emo rock and
Emo Phillips have about the same probability of popularity.

Answer: I didn't give this answer at the time because I was afraid of killing the conversation
completely. Listeners in 2307 will enjoy whatever best
survives the current copyright climate. It's the music that benefits from having
communities that refresh themselves with new, young listeners, brought in by something
they heard their parents enjoying or discussing; it's music that can be performed,
mashed up, remixed, shared and laid down under some
killer Lego anime. The Brothers Grimm are still popular, not as much in prose
as in song and dance, thanks to Disney's appropriation of classic stories for
their animated films. This isn't a bad thing; it's just an argument for the good that
can come from having a relaxed view of copyright (or access to material for
which the copyright has expired).

A Better Answer: Most jazz, particularly Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Thelonius
Monk. To this day
jazz bands of teenagers struggle with transcriptions of their work, until they realize
that those solos weren't written; they were experienced, and the musicians were having
fun with the medium. I'm probably on the border of "today's music" with references
to the golden be-bop kings, so I'll expand the list to include Yes, anything on
Guitar Hero, the Grateful Dead, Phish, and the Who. In reverse order, the Who embodied
"Rock is dead, long live rock" and a few centuries are unlikely to change that. Being
first into the memorabilia shrine at the Hard Rock Cafe also helps.
The Dead and Phish already thrive on a bootleg and sharing culture that is likely to
cross generations (although I'm not sure how many young Dead heads I've met). Guitar Hero
will expose the classic rockers to the Millenials and they'll boogie together. And finally, Yes
will still be played in 300 years because those of us who are true Yes-heads have
a religious attachment to their music, one that we try to pass on to our kids, one
that's captured in at least a dozen books and biographies. There's a fine parallel
between religion and music, whether it was Yes bass man Chris Squire learning his
notes on a church organ, or Mozart's
Requiem. And finally, as a bonus answer, in 250 years when Princeton University is
celebrating its 500th anniversary the
Princeton University Band will play the B-52's "Rock Lobster" and
nobody will understand the lyrics then, either.

Tuesday Oct 16, 2007

Greetings from Hollywood, California, home of the silver screen, recording
studios,
Doctor Demento, and earthquakes. I'm
speaking on a DRM panel hosted
by the media business law firm Foley and Lardner. I'm one of three
technology folks in the room, and I'm going to talk about avoiding
legal and technical decisions that limit our future rights, opportunities
and markets. I don't think I'm going to be popular; perhaps I should not
have worn my
Diesel Sweeties pirate shirt; "pirate" foments a
violent reaction among this group of legal media ninjas.

And if you surf over to the good Doctor's web site, you'll see that
he's switched from a nationally syndicated, advertising supported
model to a subscription service. Dr. Demento was a Sunday night
staple, fitting into the time slice of my teen years between the
Wonderful World of Disney and Sunday night NFL games. The shift
away from national syndication doesn't mean that there's no longer
an audience for his particular brand of wackiness, but rather that
audience isn't sitting by the radio on Sunday night, aggregated in
one time slot. Now you can listen to what you want when and where
you want, without the FCC's censorship.
But it's not "free" in the sense of advertising
supported radio being free. If you're willing to spend $2 for
a sophomoric laugh when you need it most, it's a good deal.

Saturday Mar 10, 2007

Bob Sokol rejoins the blogging ranks
after a quick start out of the gate followed by his blog going on hiatus.
He's back, and his most recent entry about DRM and
dogs is a perfect introduction to the mess that is the DRM landscape.

And when he's done explaining that, I'm hoping he can make
sense of the whole
American Sokol thing. Bob has about as much to do with American
Sokol as I do with
H. Stern jewelers but it's still fun for us to give each other
a hard time about it (and supposedly my free samples of jewels would
be better than his free samples of exercise, but we digress).